The present invention relates to a device for supplying fuel to a burner in a fuel cell system comprising a reformer.
Nothing in the following discussion of the state of the art is to be construed as an admission of prior art.
Burners or combustion chambers are used in fuel cell systems with reformers for combusting burners residual gases and generating thermal energy for the fuel cell system. Typically, such residual gases can be the exhaust gases of the fuel cell, to which residual gases, if need be, an additional combustible starting material is fed, in particular the same starting material as is fed to the reformer. Usually a liquid starting material which comprises carbon and hydrogen, such as e.g. petrol, diesel, naphtha, an alcohol or the like, is used as a starting material. A typical design of the type mentioned above is for example described in German patent publication DE 100 54 842 A1.
In order to ensure the best possible combustion in the burner, the starting material, provided such starting material is being added, is conveyed and atomised and/or evaporated in the mixture made up of air and residual gas.
Apparatus-related as well as energy-related expenditure may be necessary in order to achieve this.
Handling the resulting mixture of residual gas, residual air from the cathode region, and if applicable, of the starting material may be comparatively critical when compared to the pure starting material and/or the residual gas; said mixture can prematurely combust or it can also explode.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved device for supplying fuels to a burner, to obviate prior art shortcomings and to operate at optimum energy use and safety.